Chapter 31 Tex
TEX
“Two million?”
The smile on Rowan’s face softened, but didn’t disappear. If anything, she looked almost sheepish, like she’d just remembered something important.
My stomach tightened at the memory of that night. Of holding her against me while she shook in fear of the anger that had burned through my veins. “Why?”
She glanced toward the house, then back at me. “I found something at my parents’ place. Paperwork. It was locked in a metal lockbox in their bedroom closet.”
I stayed quiet, letting her talk.
“They’d been putting money aside,” she continued. “Every month. For years.”
“How much money?”
She hesitated and swallowed, looking almost sheepish before she spoke again. “Millions.”
I stilled. “That’s a hell of a lotta money, Rowan.”
“I know.” Her eyes were bright now, and excited. “At first I thought it had to be wrong. But I called the bank. Got it confirmed. It’s all accurate. I wasn’t going to touch it, but it feels like such a waste when I can do so much good with it. And now I can pay the club back for all of this too.”
I didn’t say anything but something in my gut twisted uncomfortably. “You still got the paperwork?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, I mean, if it didn’t get burned up. It was in the metal lock box, though, so it should be okay.”
Inside, the smell of fresh paint and new wood hung in the air. Workers moved in and out quietly, but gave us space as Rowan led me down the hallway toward her parents’ old bedroom.
She knelt beside the closet and reached in before pulling out the metal lock box. It was scratched and dented, but intact.
She unlocked it and smiled as she pulled out the neatly organized papers inside and handed them to me.
I scanned the pages, noting bank statements, money transfers, and account summaries.
And my eyes went wide as I spotted the total in the bottom right-hand corner.
The date on that statement had been a few months before her mom and dad had been killed, too, so the amount was even more now, especially with interest.
I let out a long whistle.
And she wasn’t lying.
There were millions that had been slowly accumulated over years in regular, careful, clean deposits.
“And you said you get all this confirmed?” I asked again.
She nodded. “Yeah. I spoke to a clerk. They verified everything.”
She looked happy and relieved, and I felt like a piece of shit at the thought that I might burst her bubble. She’d finally found something good in the middle of all the bad, but my gut twisted harder the more I looked through the paperwork.
“Somethin’ doesn’t feel right, Rowan,” I muttered.
Her smile faltered. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head slowly. “Don’t know. I can’t explain it, but I know to trust my gut.”
She leaned back against the bed, thinking.
“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?” she said softly.
“My parents were clearly helping the cartel. They were probably getting paid for it, and I know it’s likely blood money, but I want to use it for good.
Surely that’s better than just, I don’t know, giving it away to the government or…
” She shrugged helplessly. “Do I need to give it back to the cartel?”
My jaw tightened and she kept talking, piecing it together.
She bit down on her lower lip and looked back down at the papers.
“It looks like they tried to stop right before they were killed because that’s when all the payments stopped.
Which would make sense because I told them I was coming back to live at the ranch and they tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen.
I just wanted to come home and ride horses. ”
I flipped through the papers again and again, trying to figure out what was making me feel so tense. Trying to figure out why this all felt so wrong. The cartel didn’t need this money. It was a couple million, which was nothing to them.
“Bank clerk say anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah, actually.” She leaned forward slightly and sighed. “They said the payments in and out of the account stopped right before my parents died.”
My head lifted. “Payments going out?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Must’ve been someone in the cartel. I don’t mind giving the money back—not if it keeps me and the ranch safe. I just hoped I could do some good with it, but I get it. I thought it was too good to be true.”
“Did they give you a name, Rowan? Of who the payments were going to,” I asked, gathering the papers together and putting them all back into the lock box.
“Yeah, it was a man named Peter Anthony. I don’t know anyone with that name, though, so it has to be someone in the cartel, but it doesn’t sound like a Mexican name.”
Rowan was still talking, but I couldn’t hear a thing she was saying.
Everything stopped and my body had gone still. A cold spread through me like ice in my veins, freezing everything in its path as the gut-churning realization hit me.
“Peter Anthony?” I repeated quietly.
She nodded. “Yeah. Weird name, right? Like I said, it doesn’t exactly sound Mexican.”
“It’s not Mexican,” I replied.
I knew that name. I knew it real well.
Peter Anthony wasn’t cartel, and he wasn’t some middleman.
He was a fucking rat.
He was the rat in our club.
And suddenly, everything made sense.